If you want an example of a tightly regulated sport, look no further than Formula 1. The FIA controls everything, and petrol is no exception. A far cry from the rocket-fuel early days of the competition, today's race-spec petrol - more correctly called gasoline in keeping with the sport's international scope - must adhere to a strict set of requirements, including a portion of "biocomponents", or elements derived from renewable resources rather than fossil fuels. 

Shell's technology manager for Ferrari, Cara Tredget, says the relationship between Shell and Ferrari goes way back to the early 20th Century, when Enzo Ferrari raced for Alfa Romeo.

"Shell provided the fuel for those early races and the relationship has lasted all this time," she says. "We're the only company with a trackside laboratory, which allows us to ensure the fuel adheres to the FIA requirements at all times."

Just like humans, cars are periodically tested for naughty additives in their fuel, but even grease from a mechanic's glove can trigger an alert. Shell employs gas chromatographs in its lab to sniff for unwanted compounds. 

But of course there's an R&D side to the lab too. Tredget says a "rotating disc electrode elemental analyser", or RDE, checks a fuel sample for microscopic metallic particles, which can indicate engine wear.

"We generally know what a normal amount of engine wear is for the car, and if the RDE shows us metal levels are quite high, we can advise the team to change how they're running the engine," says Tredget. It's all vital data for a machine that operates at 18,000 rpm.

The trackside laboratory is part of Shell's ongoing relationship with Ferrari, which allows the company to push the limits of what's possible with fuel. In fact this lab is just the F1 equivalent of a field test kit - the real work is done in the UK and Germany, where fuel samples are tested and then flown to Maranello in Italy, where they're put through great roaring bench-mounted F1 engines. If a fuel makes the grade, it's submitted to the FIA for approval, and then made up in quantity for the next season of racing.

Fuel is important because the FIA locked down engine design some time ago - so teams have to rely on fuel to eke out extra performance. The FIA also added a biocomponent stipulation in 2008 and now cars must also have kinetic energy recovery systems - regenerative braking, for instance - that makes these monsters slightly more eco-friendly. KERS also has an unwanted side-effect, though.

In 2011 "the cars will be heavier than last year, and will be lacking significant aerodynamic advantages available in previous seasons," says Tredget, referring to the banning of the double-diffuser and the F-Duct by the FIA. "On top of this they will have to complete the whole race on one tank of fuel."

There's one more requirement on F1 fuel - it has to be commercially available. Shell uses its premium V-Power petrol, which you can buy at the pump today. Sure, the F1 variant has a few special compounds added to it (okay, more than 200), but it will work in your car.

"Our commercial V-Power has to work in a wide variety of different engines," says Tredget. "the F1 fuel only has to work with two cars." Not two KINDS of cars, two cars, full stop. "We can tailor it very precisely."

In fact Shell recently experimented by putting commercial V-Power in the 2009 Ferrari F1 car. The result? A very very slightly slower acceleration, but also a very very slightly higher top speed. Otherwise, the fuels were pretty much identical. 

The point of working with Ferrari on Formula 1? "It pushes us to the technical extreme," says Tredget. Plus it's kind of fun to think that your 96 Subaru is fuelling up on F1 juice, even while you're filling up on a traveller's pie.